Fort Bragg – Throckmorton Library Visit I
Fort Myer to Fort Bragg!
John Michael Brings Fort Myer to Fort Bragg
It was a much-awaited visit arranged by Donna Tabor, Command Historian XVIIIth Airborne Corps, to present the little-known history of Fort Myer (once known as Fort Whipple) to a very interested crowd of attendees both from the Army post and surrounding area.
The basis of the presentation was “Images of America – Fort Myer“, the first book that was ever written/published about this Civil War-era fort. It was part of the 70 plus forts that formed the “Defenses of Washington” during the war and the ONLY one still performing its mission of defending the Capital.
Among the additional historical photos and narrative that go beyond the book, there were three videos that are rarely seen:
- The Wright Flyer in flight
- The Caisson drag racing scene from “Keep ‘Em Rolling“
- “The Old Guard” and “Pershing’s Own” in a ceremony on Summerall Field
NOTE: “The Old Guard” is the 3d Infantry Regiment and “Pershing’s Own” is the US Army Band
Fort Bragg – Home to 82d Airborne Division
In its early days, the post began as Camp Bragg on Sept. 4, 1918, as an artillery training center. Home of the AIRBORNE, the 82d Division with its associated battalions are the major residents of Fort Bragg. The XVIIIth Airborne Corps and Special Forces Command are also garrisoned on the post.
Strike and Hold:
A Memoir of the 82nd Airborne
in World War II
Hardcover – July 1, 2000
This fast-moving memoir of T. Moffatt Burriss shows his extraordinary role as a platoon leader and company commander with the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment in Europe and North Africa during World War II. He saw a great deal of combat on Sicily, at Salerno, on Anzio Beach, in Holland during Operation Market Garden, and during the drive into Germany. This book portrays World War II as seen vividly through the eyes of the young American citizen-soldier.
Fort Bragg – Home to US Army Special Forces
Derived from the basis of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II, the Regiment has evolved into the most elite forces in the United States military. Recognized by a visit in 1961 by President John F Kennedy at McKellar’s Pond behind McKellar’s Lodge on Fort Bragg. It was the first time that JFK saw them outfitted with their “Green Berets”. The meeting was a backchannel event arranged by then BG William P. Yarborough and his classmate from West Point, MG Chester V. Clifton, who was Kennedy’s military aide.
Getting approval for the beret, presidential approval that is, was the visible outcome of the historic event, but the most important was the increased allocation of funds to evolve the Special Forces into what they have become – “the elite force of the military – The Silent Professionals”
The Quiet Professional:
Major Richard J. Meadows
of the U.S. Army Special Forces
(American Warrior Series) Paperback
by Alan Hoe (Author), Peter J. Schoomaker USA (Ret.) (Foreword)
About the Book:
Major Richard J. “Dick” Meadows is renowned in military circles as a key figure in the development of the U.S. Army Special Operations. A highly decorated war veteran of the engagements in Korea and Vietnam, Meadows was instrumental in the founding of the U.S. Delta Force and hostage rescue force. Although he officially retired in 1977, Meadows could never leave the army behind, and he went undercover in the clandestine operations to free American hostages from Iran in 1980.
The Quiet Professional: Major Richard J. Meadows of the U.S. Army Special Forces is the only biography of this exemplary soldier’s life. Military historian Alan Hoe offers unique insight into Meadows, having served alongside him in 1960. The Quiet Professional is an insider’s account that gives a human face to U.S. military strategy during the cold war. Major Meadows often claimed that he never achieved anything significant; The Quiet Professional proves otherwise, showcasing one of the great military minds of twentieth-century America.
OSS
Wild Bill Donovan:
The Spymaster
Who Created the OSS
and Modern American Espionage
Paperback
by Douglas Waller (Author)
About the Book:
“Entertaining history…Donovan was a combination of bold innovator and imprudent rule bender, which made him not only a remarkable wartime leader but also an extraordinary figure in American history” (The New York Times Book Review).
He was one of America’s most exciting and secretive generals—the man Franklin Roosevelt made his top spy in World War II. A mythic figure whose legacy is still intensely debated, “Wild Bill” Donovan was director of the Office of Strategic Services (the country’s first national intelligence agency) and the father of today’s CIA. Donovan introduced the nation to the dark arts of covert warfare on a scale it had never seen before. Now, veteran journalist Douglas Waller has mined government and private archives throughout the United States and England, drawn on thousands of pages of recently declassified documents, and interviewed scores of Donovan’s relatives, friends, and associates to produce a riveting biography of one of the most powerful men in modern espionage.
Wild Bill Donovan reads like an action-packed spy thriller, with stories of daring young men and women in the OSS sneaking behind enemy lines for sabotage, breaking into Washington embassies to steal secrets, plotting to topple Adolf Hitler, and suffering brutal torture or death when they were captured by the Gestapo. It is also a tale of political intrigue, of infighting at the highest levels of government, of powerful men pitted against one another.
Separating fact from fiction, Waller investigates the successes and the occasional spectacular failures of Donovan’s intelligence career. It makes for a gripping and revealing portrait of this most controversial spymaster.
BUY THE BOOK
Images of America – Fort Myer is a pictorial chronicle of the first one hundred years of history containing over two hundred photographs, maps, and images. Beginning in the 1860s and carrying through the 1960s it provides a view
of what was over time.
An autographed copy of the book can be purchased at BUY THE BOOK.